This is generally where the pot and kettle have a one-word conversation.

Basing your 12 millions subs giant colossal mmo ENTIRELY on a single theme is not called parody. It's called marketing. Also, parodies? The npcs dialogues seem written by the Chinese tourism association. What are you on about.

The theme in this instance is the oft-requested Alliance-Horde war. And yes, parodies... or did you not meet Jaomin Ro on the Wandering Isle, Chen Stormstout and Li Li in Valley, Mudmug in Valley, the Tillers in their entirety, the Hozen, the jinyu, the virmen, Sully, the draenei SI:7 agent, the grummles...

Listen, we're all playing mop, and you can think whatever you want. But EVERYTHING, from critters, to mobs, to plants and trees, landscapes, npcs, architecture, stories is HEAVILY based on Chinese folklore.

As opposed to Northrend, where much of the architecture and the entirety of vrykul lore were based off of Norse mythology?

Style wise I find it LESS interesting than other expansions. Wotlk was beautiful to look at. Tbc? Style wise a masterpiece it still amazes me when I fly around the place.

And here we find the meat of your problem with MoP. That's a legit problem. Trying to disguise you not liking the style as imaginary pandering to a player base by using stereotypes and parodies is where I take umbrage.

The thing that surprises me is no one has called out the fact the different metrics were averaged to together to come up with the score. One uses a 100 point metric the other a 10 point metric, so if you add (80+87)/2=83.3. there is no way you can fairly average scores that use different metrics.

EDIT: We're not talking about the USER SUBMITTED REVIEWS on metacritic here (which can be ignored), we're talking about the actual CRITIC Reviews from respected people like IGN, eurogamer and gamespot.

Yeah, because those places are really known for their accuracy, fairness, and integrity. /sarcasm

Oh of course, MoP is a failure and everyone hates it it may aswell close up shop and shut down... right?
Just because people who no longer play the game or people who think the game has changed too much don't like it and give it bad reviews, doesn't mean its bad. Right now my only issue is that 90% of the end content is dailies and/or gated behind them.

Listen, we're all playing mop, and you can think whatever you want. But EVERYTHING, from critters, to mobs, to plants and trees, landscapes, npcs, architecture, stories is HEAVILY based on Chinese folklore.

I'm trying very hard to figure out a justification for this being a complaint without said justification being outright racism or jingoism. Trying, but failing. It comes off as you being simply prejudiced against China for racial or cultural reasons.

And don't refer to China's current communist regime; MoP isn't about that at all. It's about China's mythology and history. Which wasn't communist at all, so don't try and McCarthy your way out of it.

This is generally where the pot and kettle have a one-word conversation.
The theme in this instance is the oft-requested Alliance-Horde war. And yes, parodies... or did you not meet Jaomin Ro on the Wandering Isle, Chen Stormstout and Li Li in Valley, Mudmug in Valley, the Tillers in their entirety, the Hozen, the jinyu, the virmen, Sully, the draenei SI:7 agent, the grummles...
As opposed to Northrend, where much of the architecture and the entirety of vrykul lore were based off of Norse mythology?
And here we find the meat of your problem with MoP. That's a legit problem. Trying to disguise you not liking the style as imaginary pandering to a player base by using stereotypes and parodies is where I take umbrage.

There is parodies and parodies. The nuclear us of the 50's and 60's in fallout was a parody/critic. This is a parody/touristic adv.
Man, I'm talking style wise, this discussion you approached is based only on the way mop looks (as stated clearly in the post you replied to). I agree on the alliance/horde war, it's great. Lore wise.
Style wise the theme is not influenced, rather completely based off Chinese folklore. Nothing wrong just it makes it less interesting.
Yes, as opposed to northrend where SOME of the architecture and SOME of the vrykul lore is based on Viking culture. I'm glad you see the point.
Yeh that's my problem with the way mop LOOKS. I made it quite clear.
It's a good marketing move but you're open to criticism.

---------- Post added 2012-10-13 at 07:03 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Endus

I'm trying very hard to figure out a justification for this being a complaint without said justification being outright racism or jingoism. Trying, but failing. It comes off as you being simply prejudiced against China for racial or cultural reasons.

And don't refer to China's current communist regime; MoP isn't about that at all. It's about China's mythology and history. Which wasn't communist at all, so don't try and McCarthy your way out of it.

You took it out of context. We're disussing style. You are NOT free to insult people as you please. Shame on you.
I will be kind enough and ignore your post.

it could be the worst expansion in the history of expacs, but i hardly think this is the correct patch to claim "the verdict is in, MoP blows". in my opinion at least, and i think most people share it, the final patch is what truly decides an expansion.

Unfortunately you have to pay FULL PRICE for the expansion right now, NOT at the end of the expac. So reviews right now are justified and really important.

The majority of the reviews on that website don't even explain why they didn't like it. They're just 0 and "lol stay away from this failing game." The OP for one of them even said that he only played it for 1 day. I'm sure that's the vast majority of the reviewers for the expansion.

"It's all well and good to call the low rating givers trolls but the reality is most of us are people who sunk a decent amount of hours in to WoW from the beginning and are sick of the rubbish Blizzard is now flogging us. I was bored of this game within the first few hours and feel like a sucker for buying this after they already ripped me off with Diablo 3. Delete this game from existence a release WoW2 revamp starting from Vanilla days. I think that would be 100x better than kiddycore pandaland. If 70% of people rate this game badly you can't just call them all trolls and ignore them...…"

You took it out of context. We're disussing style. You are NOT free to insult people as you please. Shame on you.
I will be kind enough and ignore your post.

And yet, earlier;

Originally Posted by Djalil

Stylewise mop is the equivalent of bending over, taking Down Your pants and shouting WELCOME IN!! to the Chinese market.

So no, you're talking about Blizzard supposedly "caving" to marketing pressures to make their product more appealing to a Chinese market, and then acting as if that is somehow a "bad thing". So again, racism or jingoism is what I can come up with.

If it were just that you don't like the style, then you'd be acknowledging that it's not to your personal taste. That's not what you're doing. You've got an agenda you're pushing, and I'm pointing it out.

I'm not calling you names. I'm asking for you to explain how these statements AREN'T inherently racist or jingoist. You're stating things as if they were objective fact rather than subjective personal opinion. That it being "too Chinese" is somehow a negative, objectively speaking. That's where I can't see any supportive argument that doesn't boil down to prejudice.

I'm open to you proving they aren't, but refusing to answer doesn't help your case.

Such a silly notion to think reviewers will declare how good or bad an expansion is. The players decide this.

You want facts? Here you go.

1. There is more end-game content available to players of all skill levels in Mists of Pandaria than any previous expansion.

2. With the release of Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's subscriptions went above 10 million once again.

3. Mists of Pandaria is scheduled to have a new system of patches that function similarly to how Burning Crusade's patches were released. While I won't go into the details here, you can expect every other patch (5.1, 5.3, so on) to introduce more content available to everybody, rather than just raid content and maybe associated dailies or dungeons. 5.1, specifically, focuses on more content for soloing or small groups, furthers the legendary quest line, and highlights the Alliance versus Horde conflict with new dailies.TL;DR - More end-game content available to everybody than has historically ever been patched in - patches usually focused on the raid scene.

4. Many long awaited features that players have consistently asked for have finally arrived. Included in these are the renaming of companion pets, a neutral (pick-your-faction) race, the ability to dismount players for world PvP (although this feature COULD be more readily available, seeing as it's a drop from a rare), the ability to interact with players from other realms, and more that I haven't mentioned.

5. Mists of Pandaria has succeeded at bringing players back out into the game world on a far better scale than Cataclysm or Wrath of the Lich King ever did.

Personally, I feel Mists of Pandaria has better end-game content than Cataclysm and Wrath of the Lich King (as a whole - Ulduar is still pretty much Blizzard's shining gem). To be honest, it's quite possible that it has better content than Burning Crusade, but it's too early to tell.

Im having a grea time playing MoP. I started my experience with little expectations and in truth i wasnt really into the Asian theme and some of the new features. Its actually funny but im spending most of my time playing the pet battles .
I see the game had a bad review at Metacritic so i guess ill have to stop playing MoP .. too bad i was having so much fun.

If you don't like the game, then don't play it. End of story. Move on and stop talking shit about a game you don't like, all over forums about said game.

Originally Posted by Endus

And yet, earlier;

So no, you're talking about Blizzard supposedly "caving" to marketing pressures to make their product more appealing to a Chinese market, and then acting as if that is somehow a "bad thing". So again, racism or jingoism is what I can come up with.

If it were just that you don't like the style, then you'd be acknowledging that it's not to your personal taste. That's not what you're doing. You've got an agenda you're pushing, and I'm pointing it out.

I'm not calling you names. I'm asking for you to explain how these statements AREN'T inherently racist or jingoist. You're stating things as if they were objective fact rather than subjective personal opinion. That it being "too Chinese" is somehow a negative, objectively speaking. That's where I can't see any supportive argument that doesn't boil down to prejudice.

I'm open to you proving they aren't, but refusing to answer doesn't help your case.

Read my posts again and you'll find all you're looking for.
I was discussing style with a gentleman before you stormed in ignoring what we were talking about.
Not once I said gathering to the Chinese market is bad.
You, sir, are COMPLETELY wrong and I suggest, if you have a tiny bit of dignity, to apologise for the horrible things you accused me of and leave the discussion the two of us are having.